


giving up the ghost

by eggstasy



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 06:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6068149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tucker got a lot of judgment through his life and that didn't change when he joined the military. Getting transferred into this fake-ass simulation war might've been a demotion on paper, but meeting the first person to call him out without thinking less of him for it made all of the humiliation worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	giving up the ghost

By the time the ship drops out of a blind jump, Malcom Hargrove is dead.

The engines are disabled; it was all he could do apparently, because Simmons takes a look at the console and says they were just a few keystrokes short of having no life support, too. So they're drifting, but not suffocating. It could be worse.

Hargrove didn't even let any of them have the pleasure of taking his ass out. As soon as Tucker and the others burst onto the bridge, Hargrove took one look at them, snarled something vaguely assholish like "I won't let failures like you take me to prison" or something else equally stupid and then just shot himself, right there, right in the head.

What was it about old white pricks who try to control the world not wanting to face the consequences of their actions? Tucker doesn't know. Tucker doesn't _care_  to know.

Simmons immediately goes to a console while Grif toes the corpse of Hargrove, muttering, "Just like a bitch," and Tucker takes a second to tremble and stare at the hallucinations milling about him, apparitions like fog in a haunted house.

People in Mark VI armor he's never seen before, leaning against walls, arguing, congregating, fighting. Tex, lots of Tex, standing like a sentinel in black with her shoulders back and her chin up. Proud. Unearthly. Tucker can see why Church would fall in love with her if that's how he saw her because she doesn't even look real.

And Church. A life-sized Church, cobalt armor glowing almost white. Those are from Tucker's own head, he thinks, the fragments of himself that Epsilon must've found and adopted and used to run the equipment, however accidentally. He sees Church with the sniper rifle, he sees him kicking his feet up onto a rock with his hands behind his head. He sees him with his helmet canting to the side in that way Tucker recognizes from the canyon, that pre-laugh bubble in his voice as he goes, _Fucking hell Tucker, you're a real piece of work._

Tucker got a lot of judgment through his life and that didn't change when he joined the military. Getting transferred into this fake-ass simulation war might've been a demotion on paper, but meeting the first person to call him out without thinking less of him for it made all of the humiliation worth it.

"Tucker, wake up."

Tucker starts and Grif is staring at him hard. Grif would get it. Trying to be dumber so nobody expects too much of you, but getting forced into thinking anyway. _Shit._ He can't stop getting lost in his head. Someone in tan armor is putting Washington into a headlock just past Grif's shoulder and Tucker stares until he jerks back to look at Grif. "Fuck, what? What is it?"

Grif gives him five seconds of silence that Tucker interprets as _I know something's wrong but there's no time for it_ before repeating himself. "Simmons said he might be able to get the engines back on. Star charts said we're near Sanghelios. You got any buddies there?"

"Uh." Tucker presses a hand to his helmet. _Keep your abomination away from me, Tucker._ "Yeah. I- Junior's there, on the embassy. Some other guys I know."

"Swell." Grif turns away. Tucker wants to ask why they can't just go back to Chorus, but figures if they could do that Simmons wouldn't have to ask about Sanghelios. He's kind of rusty; hopefully he won't mispronounce the word for "table" as "motherfucker" again and cause a political incident. It should be fine. Probably.

He heads back to Hargrove's office, moving some of the bodies out of the way to make walking easier. They all killed a lot of people. _That's war. Not everybody makes it._ Sarge nods at him at the door, leaning heavily to the side but still managing to look like he could easily put his boot up Grif's ass were he so inclined. He does that.

Church ghosts past him and disappears into a wall, a clipped pace that Tucker recognizes (everything, he recognizes everything, because that's all Church is now, each one, every one, just memories). Lopez and Doc are tending to Donut, and Caboose is still slumped against the wall. Tucker goes to him first.

"You doing okay?" Caboose doesn't say anything, holding his side. There's biofoam peeking out between his fingers and the green glow of the healing unit lights up his armor from where it pulses softly on its brace.  "Caboose, you awake in there?"

"Please go away, Tucker," he says thickly. Tucker stands up and moves to check on Donut instead.

"He'll be all right," Doc says. "Just hit his head pretty hard. Well, I think he'll be all right. Unless his brain is hemorrhaging! Then he's probably dead. I'd say it's a eighty-twenty chance of that though."

Lopez rolls his eyes and gets up to relieve Sarge as door guard. "Always a pleasure getting a prognosis from you, Doc," Tucker says as he gets up to leave also. He turns at the door to see Church crouched next to Doc, whispering battle plans to a teammate not there and Tucker wants to bang his head against the wall until it stops. It has to stop.

_It has to stop._

 

* * *

 

Tucker manages to communicate with the landing crew that they have wounded on board and that he has family ( _yes, family,_ he reiterates) in the embassy. Grif keeps looking at him like he Knows and Tucker ignores it like he's ignoring everything else. He'd changed back into his regular armor once the last shards of Epsilon had faded from his consciousness, but he's still seeing things, hearing things.

Either way, the Meta's armor is useless now that he can't run the mods. And too tight in the crotch. Tucker just wants to feel at home, wants to be recognizable to other people. Caboose won't look at him, won't talk to him as two Sangheili medics pull him up between them and help him off the ship and onto a stretcher. They have to make some calls to find some personnel who know human anatomy. They put in a call to the embassy, too.

They're not allowed to leave the landing bay until they get cleared because there's four dozen bodies on the ship they just brought in so Simmons, Grif, Doc and Lopez all sit around with Tucker while Sarge, Donut and Caboose get checked out.

"So he's actually gone?" Simmons asks, looking right at Tucker. Nobody's taken their armor off, even if they're all covered in blood and burns and chips from glancing shots. Simmons is folding his arms tight like he's hugging himself, like he can just close himself off from everything. Tucker knows the feeling.

"Yeah." Tucker runs a finger over the symbols carved into the hilt of his badass sword. One of the few things that got them medical attention and a call to the embassy in the first place. Humans don't exactly cart these things around by the truckload. Or at all.

"So what's up with you?" Tucker looks up and Grif's posture is 100% lazy and also 100% accusing.

So he shrugs a shoulder. No point lying to Grif; if he's bothering to ask, he'll keep asking until he gets an answer. "I'm seeing shit." Tucker rubs at his visor. "From him- y'know, breaking apart. Things I don't know, or shouldn't know. And Church, from Blood Gulch- it's whatever, it's going away." He's not seeing the Freelancers anymore, not seeing Wash grind a skateboard down a ship railing, not watching Connie balance her knives on the tip of her finger (and who the fuck is Connie anyway?). He's not seeing Tex leaving, over and over. Tex. _Allison._

No, now all he's seeing is Church. Church from the canyon. Church from the memory unit. The Church Tucker knows, and the other Church Tucker was re-learning to know. His best friends.

God, he wants Wash here.

"Dad!" And then Church vanishes from Tucker's peripheral because his kid's here, thundering into the hangar toward them. Tucker slides down from the crate he's perched atop and jogs over, then runs, throwing open his arms and letting the kid he remembers being shorter than his own knees wrap him up and drape his great big head over Tucker's.

"Hey buddy," Tucker says, and all the sharp and angry parts of him go quiet and soft like they always do around Junior. He rubs his son's back, and he hears that low gurgling sound that means crying so he rubs harder.  "Heyyy kiddo, hey. What're the tears for? Why the crying, dude?"

"The message said you were all in trouble," Junior burbles sadly, covering Tucker like a giant lizard limb blanket.  "I was so scared. I thought you were going to die."

"Ahhh, buddy. Your dad's unkillable, remember?" The others are getting up and being moved behind him, technicians boarding the ship to try and figure out how to get them back home. Tucker doesn't care. He doesn't care. For the first time since Hargrove's office he's not seeing echoes of Church's life everywhere. For the first time since then he's not feeling the strain of a dozen armor mods weighing down his head, his limbs, his organs. He doesn't feel like just breathing is a chore he has to suffer through.

Junior snuffling with relief over his head is probably the best thing Tucker could've asked for after this.

 

* * *

 

The Sangheili manage to pull Chorus's coordinates out of the ship's computer. Hargrove had torn apart the navigation logs in an effort to make it look like he'd never gone there, still trying to cover his tracks even when he was on a one-way trip to prison. Tucker wishes he was still alive so they could watch him die again. The anger surprises him. Then again, it doesn't.

Junior doesn't leave Tucker alone for a second, which is a comfort and not even close to annoying. It's funny; before he had Junior (and even a little after), he'd always thought he would hate having a clingy kid. Junior keeps trying to hold Tucker's hand, which Tucker finds hilarious considering Junior is in his tough-and-independent stage of growth and here he is haughtily telling everyone that he's Lavernius Tucker Junior thank you, destined hero to the Sangheili and he'll hold his dad's hand if he feels like it so fuck off. Not quite like that, but in a Junior sort of way.

Tucker lets him cling. He knows it'll wear off once the worry wears off, so he enjoys it now while he can.

Junior shows him around, shows him off to all his friends. Some of the Sangheili snort and dismiss him (a lot of bad blood between their species still), but a surprising amount of them bow their heads in deference and it makes Tucker all kinds of uncomfortable.

He stops seeing as much of Church, but he's still there. Quiet, unobtrusive, but there.

Everyone else gets taken care of. They get temporary quarters while the Sangheili put together a message and figure out how to send it to Chorus. A communications officer by the name of Taga 'Gaman asks Tucker for his handprint, which is apparently sort of like the equivalence of an autograph. Tucker feels like a fraud but does it, because the guy is the one doing all the message running and he doesn't want to piss him off just in case.

The medical officers get all the bullets out of Caboose's torso and stuff him full of some healing herbal shit that conks him out for a while, but accelerates his healing so the wounds close without scarring too much. They get the swelling down in Donut's brain (because, as usual, Doc had been wrong and Donut had been a lot worse off than they thought) and they get Sarge into this weird medicinal bath that makes all the bruises along his ribcage fade. Sarge comes out feeling like a million bucks, and proclaims as much before returning to the ship and shoehorning his way into the cleanup effort, helping to remove bodies and generally getting in the way by issuing bullshit orders. The Sangheili chase him off after a few hours of tolerating that. They don't tolerate annoying things for very long.

When the first call from Chorus goes through, Tucker gets first dibs. The Reds are busy doing their own things and Tucker has been made the de facto leader of the crew given his status among the Sangheili. It's not exactly a position he'd been vying for, but somebody has to do it and that's at least one lesson he's learned in all of this.

Carolina, Wash and Kimball greet him as he enters the communications room and it's the dumbest fucking thing, but he feels himself choke up at the sight of them. It's only been a few days. This is fucking stupid.

"It's not stupid," Kimball says.

"Yes it fucking is," Tucker argues.

They bring him up to speed. The Mantis droids were all shut down. The casualties are lower than they thought they'd be, but they're still cleaning up. They found a habitable city and are transferring what's left of their supplies there. The UNSC contacted them just the day before to let them know help was on the way. Everyone is worried sick about the Reds and Blues.

Tucker is going to tell them everything's fine until he can't, and he says instead, "Church is gone." He tells them what happened in a few words, a few very angry words, but then something in him breaks (the way Church is leaning against a nearby wall with his arms crossed, bouncing back against it, bored, canyon-bored and gone, he's fucking gone again) and then Carolina is leaving and Kimball is going after her and it's just Wash there, just him.

"Tucker," Wash says, and he sounds hurt. Like he's trying to suck up the pain from Tucker and bear it himself instead. He voice sounds like he knows and it strikes Tucker then that out of everybody in this universe, Washington would know the best. "Tucker, I'm so sorry."

"Fuck," is what Tucker gasps before laying his arms on the console and resting his head on them to cry.

 

* * *

 

The UNSC gets to Chorus before the Reds and Blues can get off of Sanghelios. They all split up for a little while; Donut and Caboose have to stay to finish their treatment, but when the UNSC ship shows up with Wash on board, Simmons, Grif, Lopez and Doc all decide to get on and get back to Chorus. Tucker decides to stay with Donut, Caboose and Junior. Sarge volunteers to stay with Donut also.

Wash announces he'll stay with his team.

That night when Tucker and Wash are alone, Tucker kisses Wash. Not like he'd imagined it would happen, where it would be all hot and sexy and there'd be hair pulling and wall shoving and Wash would whine under his hands and beg to suck Tucker's dick (that probably wouldn't have happened anyway but Tucker can dream) but it's still somehow better. Tucker tells Wash in a halting voice that he's still seeing bits of Church. Not in that stupid metaphorical way but actually, for real.

Wash reaches over and takes Tucker's hand and holds it between his own. He doesn't say anything, _I'm not good with...feelings,_ so Tucker leans over and kisses him, and keeps kissing him.

Sangheilios is dry and windy and so Wash's mouth tastes a little like sand but Tucker's sure his is worse and he doesn't care. He pulls Wash against him and kisses him for hours, days, for the rest of his goddamn life.

He'll go back to Chorus when he's ready. He'll go there and he'll let people cheer when he walks out of the ship. He'll let people look at him like he's a hero when he doesn't feel like one, when he just wants to say _I got your friends killed, I got my own friend killed_ and he won't say it because it's not his right to ruin their victory with his guilt complexes. That's something Wash will tell him on the way over and he'll hate it, but he'll know he's right.

He'll have to find a way to talk to Caboose, who still won't look at him, who cries and cries when Wash comes in and Tucker leaves. He'll have to figure out how to stop hearing Church say his name when it's quiet, _shut up Tucker_ or _hey Tuck_ in the soft hours of the night. He'll have to figure that shit out at some point.

Right now, he'll just wind his fingers into Wash's hair and taste the inside of his mouth. He'll lean into the press of Wash's hand on the small of his back and he'll listen to the wind whistle through the stone monuments of a culture he'd fallen into by accident, think about the sword at his hip, think about how he'd just fallen into that canyon too and wonder when his life will stop being a series of accidents, good and bad.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> WHEN AM I GOING TO STOP WRITING POST SEASON 13 AUS????  
>  _when i fuckin feel like it_
> 
> more barely-edited skypefic with [ablankshot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ablankshot/pseuds/ablankshot), who gets subjected to most of it


End file.
